In
2003, the Society of Animal Artists, Inc., honored "Squirrel
Season - Smooth" with an Award of Excellence and included the
work in its National Museum Tour.
Also in 2003, the National Sculpture Society, NSS, awarded "Squirrel
Season - Smooth" its Polich Art Foundry Prize, given in memory
of Benson Selzer, in its 70th Annual Exhibition.

Photograph
by Mel Schockner.

Photograph
by Mel Schockner.

Photograph
by Mel Schockner.

Photograph
by Mel Schockner.

"Squirrel
Season - Smooth" is shown on display at the Lewisville, TX, Public
Library. Photograph by Elizabeth Loggins.

"The
idea for "Squirrel Season" came to me when my husband
Brian and I walked our dachshunds Lizzie and Edgar in our neighborhood,
AKA "Squirrel Alley." Squirrels stimulate two entirely
different approaches to "hunting" them: manly Edgar simply
stares at a squirrel -- as if he can "will" it down from
the tree, while his eternally optimistic grandmother Lizzie leaps
and leaps, hugging the tree and nearly wearing the hair off her
chest, each time she attempts to reach it. My dachshund anatomy
mentor Weldon Long once commented about my Dream Chasers Series
that I had done the impossible: I had made a dog look as if it is
"on the move." It was Weldon's comment that encouraged
me to create Lizzie leaping. Actually, now that she is nearly fourteen
years old, she uses the staring method too, but at age twelve, she
nearly climbed trees for squirrels! As with my other 1:6 scale works,
I modeled these dachshunds directly in wax and created the bases
to fit the action. Designed as a pair, they may be used as bookends
or as a two-part free-standing sculpture." - Joy Kroeger Beckner

The
sculpture "Squirrel Season - Smooth" is available in two
patinas:
1. Red (as shown on the top left image above).
2. Black and tan (as shown on the top right image above).